The Random Factor
by Jessa L'Rynn
Summary: Behind a secret door, there is a being of whimsy and mystique. Open that door and anything can happen, anything at all. A storehouse of wonder and mad ideas, take a peek inside, if you dare. No two adventures are the same and it's still not mine.
1. Variations on a Theme

**Variations on a Theme**

_From the scene in The Unicorn and the Wasp. Imagine the Doctor's travels had gone a little differently, and how the reactions would vary to the following phrase. _

A/N: Each scene is unrelated to the others.

* * *

**The Doctor danced around, his eyes huge, his body covered in sweat, foodstuffs, and Ginger beer. "I need a shock!" he bellowed. "A shock!!"**

**"Right," said his companion. "A shock." ...**

* * *

...Astrid was bewildered. How did one go about shocking the Doctor, anyway? It came to her suddenly, and she grinned happily, hauled off, and slapped the hell out of him.

* * *

...Martha nodded. She drew her hand back, balled it into a fist, and brought it forward, hard as she could, a strong right hook to the Doctor's jaw.

As she shook her aching hand, she muttered, "God, I've wanted to do that!"

* * *

...Agatha frowned. "My husband," she said, angrily. "I didn't catch him in bed with a younger woman. He was in bed with some strange man called Captain Jack Harkness."

* * *

...Everyone stared at everyone else, desperate to know how you could possibly shock a man who had just poured ginger beer into his own hair. Miss Chandrakala reached over, snatched the back of the Doctor's boxers, and tugged.

* * *

...Lucy Saxon giggled and burst into a very off-key rendering of the Barney Theme Song. Nothing seemed to be happening, until her giddy husband joined in.

* * *

...Adam snapped his fingers and the computer link folded open. "See, I found a use for the door in my head." He made a face that looked a bit like concentrating. The TARDIS appeared behind them. "She likes me, now."

* * *

...Mickey waggled his eyebrows. "I just want you to know," he said, in a voice that was remarkably reminiscent of Captain Jack, "that it's you I'm following, not Rose." He walked his fingers slowly up the Doctor's chest. "If you get my drift."

* * *

...Reinette gave him a devilish, wicked smile. "Louis is a much better dancer than you, my Lord." Her hands described with vague, careful gestures exactly what sort of dancing she meant. "Actually, so is Mickey."

* * *

...Sarah Jane sighed. "The man I said I couldn't get over, the one who was impossible to follow?"

"Yeah?" the Doctor gasped.

"It wasn't you."

The Doctor gaped at her, utterly uncomprehending.

"It was Alistair."

* * *

...Jackie shrugged. "I cheated on Pete with a bloke with huge hair and a forty foot long scarf," she admitted. "He's Rose's real father."

* * *

...Susan rolled her eyes. "I found out where human babies come from. On my wedding night. Thanks a lot."

* * *

...Jenny smirked. "Aunt Donna says if you ask her very nicely, I can have a little brother."

"Why you cheeky brat!" Donna shrieked.

* * *

...The Master leaned close and whispered, softly, in his ear, "I've always loved you, Thete."

* * *

...Pete held up a small, miraculous silver object. "That Martha girl suggested that I might want to ask you about this fob watch I have. It's broken, you see, but she seemed to think, you being a Time Lord, you might could do something about it."

"Where'd you get it?" the Doctor wheezed, twitching.

"Had it since Rose was born. It's not as elaborate as the one I got for her."

* * *

...Jack grinned. Leaning forward, he kissed the Doctor, firmly, on the lips.

"That's not a shock!" the Doctor yelped. "That's just you!"

"Fine," said Jack. "I wanted to save this, but oh, well." He reached in his pocket, pulled out a small black box, and knelt at the Doctor's feet.

* * *

...Rose Tyler folded her arms across her chest. It should never come down to something like this, but she supposed they'd been dancing around the subject long enough, anyway. She snagged the Doctor's tie, dragged him forward, and shoved her hand down the front of his trousers.

* * *

**...The Doctor's body went rigid. He threw his head back and a great cloud of strange, silvery black smoke rushed into the air. Then he shook and shivered all over, before letting out a sharp exclamation of triumph.**


	2. Additions and Corrections 1

**_Additions and Corrections 1_**

**From: The Twin Dilemma**

**_Six, Peri, and a regeneration from hell._**

"...But before it was good, it was evil, totally evil, and that's what you are, aren't you, Peri?"

The Doctor was temporarily insane, that much he was certain of. But if the unfortunate little creature in front of him was evil, well, he was the Doctor. "We'll have to see if we can't fix you, won't we?"

"What?" she demanded, in that high pitched, neurotic voice. Obviously she was afraid, now that she realized he had caught on to her mischief. "You're the one whose gone nuts, Doctor!"

"Oh, no. You're evil, and I'm the Doctor. I make things better." He smiled a whimsical, winning smile. "First, I expect we'd better get you into some decent clothes. You're not covered, and all that bare flesh you use to lure the innocent to their doom... well, that simply won't work, not if you're going to be reformed. Come on, into the wardrobe with you."

"But Doctor!"

"No buts, now, young woman. And speaking of which, we'll definitely want to make sure yours is covered from now on. And we'll have less of that ridiculous accent, if you please. You're not fooling anyone and, frankly, you're an embarrassment as well as a threat. So I think you'll need elocution lessons as well."

"Just drop me back home," she said grimly.

"What? No, no, no. The Earth has enough problems to be going on with. Don't worry, my dear Peri, we'll have you sorted out in no time. After all," he finished as he turned to her and nodded, determined and only slightly befuddled, "I am a Time Lord."

* * *

A/N: If I ever tried to explain how very much I hated this episode, I'd run out of file space. I adored Colin's Doctor, and they wrote him such crap stories. I wanted nothing more than to get in there and fix it. Of course, some of the best ever pre-Stephen Moffett lines were written for the trial at the end. "Once again I remind you that this is a court of law, not a debating society for maladjusted, psychotic sociopaths."


	3. Additions and Corrections 2

**_Additions and Corrections 2_**

**From: Rose**

**_Nine, Rose, Jackie Tyler, and enough pink to scar even this alien for life._**

* * *

"...There's a strange man in my room."

"Yes there is," agreed the Doctor, to avoid saying aloud that he was probably the least strange man to have been in the Barbie Boudoir here, even counting the facts that he had a binary cardio-vascular system and was crowding nine centuries.

"Anything could happen," continued the pink, scary lady, in a voice she obviously believed to be seductive.

"No," said the Doctor, who was used to remaining calm in alarming situations and therefore was only slightly considering running for his life. "No, it couldn't."

"Get off, Mum," said the pretty young girl he had rescued yesterday, reappearing over his shoulder. "I saw 'im first, yeah?"

_What?_ thought the Doctor, but didn't say anything because his speech centers had been overloaded by the cataclysmic explosion in his fight-or-flight centers.

"Oi, you've got Mickey, ain'tcha?"

"Look, Mum, any bloke who greets you at the door with 'Kit off' is not really trying to get in your knickers. Or he's not trying to get into mine, anyways, 'cuz that isn't going to fly with me."

The Doctor was astounded to find himself making a mental note of this fact. "Did I mention it also travels in time?" sounded like a much more interesting and effective invitation to him.

* * *

AN: Might've cut down on the cosmic angst, but would that have been a problem completely?


	4. No, Really, Don't

_Spoiler warning: This takes place just after the end of The Stolen Earth. If you haven't seen that, don't read this although, really, you might want to not read this anyway. It is a VERY silly idea. Seriously, when this was put into my head, I could have slapped a certain person for putting it there. _

* * *

**Sam's Invocation**

**_AKA: No, Really, Don't_**

The blaze of glory passed and the Doctor stood there, looking down at himself in awe and confusion. "Well?" he asked, in a vaguely Welsh accent. "What do you think?"

"That's it," said Rose, "I quit."

Jack dropped the guns next to her. "Me, too," he agreed.

He took Rose's arm and they walked off, into the depths of the TARDIS or off into space, who really knew. The Doctor looked after them in surprise. "Didn't expect that," he said.

Donna finally opened her eyes. She stared at the Doctor, took in the remains of the suit he had been wearing - it wouldn't fit half of him now - the dark, wavy hair, the - there wasn't any polite way to say that he looked like a bit of an oversized fairy, was there? She blinked in a wary sort of confusion. "Who are you?" she demanded in the fearsome, angry tones she normally reserved for moments of extreme panic.

"I'm the Doctor," he said indignantly.

Donna whipped a thick book out from her back pocket, flipped through the pages, and read something carefully. "Nope," she said. "Doesn't say a damn thing about this."

"Hey," he replied. "I'm the Doctor, I'm the all powerful Lord of Time, I can do anything I want!"

"Yeah, well, ya know something? You go ahead and do that. I'm with that lot. Oi! Pretty boy! Rose! Wait for me!"

"You can't leave me, Donna!" the Doctor insisted. "You're my faithful companion!"

"You're not the Doctor," she replied hotly. "Until you get the _real_ Doctor back, I'm gonna go get my nails done or something!" And with those words, she flicked her long ginger hair over her shoulder and stormed off.

"Well, I'll just have to save the Universes without my companions, then!" the Doctor exclaimed, putting his hands on his hips, obviously trying to look like Superman. "At least I still have you, my dearest friend," he said, and stroked the TARDIS console.

The TARDIS dematerialized, leaving the Doctor standing on a wrecked street corner.

"Fine!" the Doctor shouted. "But I've got the sonic screwdriver." He brandished it at the sky, waving it in an angry fist.

"Thanks," said Rose, and snatched the screwdriver, before she disappeared again.

"How does she do that?" the Doctor demanded.

"_**CUT!**_" shouted a voice.

"What?" said the Doctor. "We can't cut now, it's my last chance, my only chance!"

"Cut, _dammit_," the voice insisted, sounding thoroughly exasperated. "Russell, get the hell off the set!!"


	5. Exasperate

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. July Challenges are now available, and what a twist for one of them. If you'd rather do June's, instead, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - we had an exceptional turn out for June II for example. The new challenges will run through the end of July. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

_Spoiler warning: This takes place just after the end of The Stolen Earth. If you haven't seen that, don't read this although, really, you might want to not read this anyway. It is another very silly idea.  
_

* * *

**Exasperate**

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Donna said, soft fondness in her eyes to match the bewildered confusion in the Doctor's.

He turned. Please, he thought, please not another hallucination. He turned and ran, just to make sure she didn't evaporate before he reached her this time. Rose, his Rose, oh so many, many things he could think at this point, and very few things he could say, because there was only one thing he really should say.

If it weren't for the darkness and the abandoned streets and the silence, this scene would be perfect. Alien worlds over head, the TARDIS behind them. Running toward each other, always running, and any second now their hands would touch, meet, catch as they were supposed to do. The Dalek in the alley coming up on the left...

The Dalek. Yeah, duck. He tried to slow down, stop, anything.

"EX-AS-PER-ATE!" the Dalek shouted.

"Cut!"

"What?" said the Doctor.

"It's this stupid Dalek," said a disembodied voice. "It's supposed to say exterminate."

The Doctor looked at Rose, looked at the Dalek, looked for the source of the voice, thought about how likely he was to get away from the shot it was about to fire.

Rose shoved her hair out of her face. "No, exasperate is about right," she said.

"Works for me," the Doctor agreed.

"I'm all for it," Donna shouted.

"Fine," said the disembodied voice. "As you were."

"EX-AS-PER-ATE!" the Dalek repeated. And the Doctor fell.


	6. For This?

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. July Challenges are now available, and what a twist for one of them. If you'd rather do June's, instead, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - we had an exceptional turn out for June II for example. The new challenges will run through the end of July. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

_Spoiler warning: This takes place just after the end of The Stolen Earth. If you haven't seen that, don't read this although, really, you might want to not read this anyway. Several very silly ideas and one really serious one that I decided to make fun of all collided in my head at once. This is what came out._

* * *

**For This?**

"Misogynist!" Rose shrieked at the sky over Bad Wolf Bay. She turned around and thumped the other Doctor on the chest. "Why didn't you ever tell me you were a male chauvinist pig?" she demanded.

"I didn't know I was," he said, looking utterly baffled. "I know the definition of the words, but I don't get what you mean."

"Oh, like hell you don't!" she shrieked. "You're part of this wretched conspiracy, too, and don't try to tell me you're not. You told me, other you, first you, last you, whatever, you told me you could feel Time Lords in your head, so that means you two have been plotting this the whole time. Alien wankers."

"Well..." he said, hesitantly.

"Don't go there," she said, holding up a hand. "This isn't right."

"Tell me about it," he said. "They just left me here." He put a hand on his hip and stared into the middle distance. "That was rude."

"Yeah," she agreed, patting his arm a little. "So there you go - rude and not ginger and not rude and ginger."

"I think I've gone off being ginger," he said.

"Good," she answered, "'cuz it wouldn't go with the suit."

"Oh, I know," he said, elongating the 'know' a little bit. She was too furious to notice.

"Is this something you're bred for, or is it just you? I mean, I saved him from getting chucked into the plastic volcano, helped save him and the Earth from the Slitheen, rescued the entire Universe and him from some cheap, knock-off Dalek-oids and the flipping Emperor, saved a whole room full of people from a werewolf while he was chatting up Queen Victoria, took on the Wire by myself, saved him from the fancy drawing monster, helped him stop the Daleks and the Cybermen, got pulled into a parallel world, made a proper name for myself, invented a dimension cannon, flew across god alone knows how many realities to find him, took over UNIT without his help or even giving my name, invented a TIME MACHINE, fixed an entire parallel Universe, blew up a god awful lot of Daleks, saved Donna's family, found him, watched him not die, and helped the lot of you save all freaking creation."

The Doctor stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment. "Yeah," he whispered.

"And now I'm supposed to want have an ordinary, day to day, retired, domestic life. He expects me to be thrilled to just sit back, buy a house with carpets, and stay barefoot and pregnant, raising cuddly little Time-sprogs with YOU." She thumped him on the chest again.

"Ah," he said. "Yeah, that is... ooh, he's an idiot, all right. 'Cuz, yeah, that's one problem - you weren't made for that life, you were made for his."

"Exactly."

"And the other problem is..."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I've got an awful lot of Donna in me," he said, hesitantly.

"Ducky," she grumbled. "So what's that mean?"

He leaned very close and whispered in her ear, "I think I'm gay."

Rose stepped back and looked at him, taking in his stance and the way he kept flicking at his hair. She threw back her head and shouted, furiously, viciously, into the sky, "FANTASTIC!"


	7. Plot Holes Part I

**More Plot Holes than You Can Back a Big Yellow Truck Through**

_AKA: Top Thirty Plot Holes of Stolen Earth/Journey's End_

As per the request of TCASM, and in no particular chronological order. Send yours in today!

* * *

1. Since when have Daleks, even bloody mad Daleks, EVER been able to control time and space in any way?

2. If they were being pulled in by a signal from Torchwood, shouldn't the TARDIS have landed in Cardiff, possibly even inside the Hub, where they would have become trapped?

3. They opened the Rift. Jack had a vast amount of security on that thing, and then they opened it the first time and let out a demon. So he made it EASIER for them to open it again later? What happened to the retina scans, changing his password, any of that?

4. So Donna's had her memories erased. Great. So what exactly does she think happened to Lance?

5. The TARDIS dies in the Parallel world. It cost the Doctor ten years of his life and took twelve hours last time. This time he just popped in, dropped off his evil!twin and left. How does that work?

6. So what WAS the point of the Medusa Cascade, then? Just to be there? Whooper-doo.

7. If one TARDIS can move the entirety of the planet Earth, why didn't they just hitch Gallifrey up to a few of them and move it some where BEFORE the Doctor could burn it down?

8. The Doctor has personally destroyed the entire Dalek race at least twice in canon. The Time Lords once SENT him to murder the entire Dalek race in their cradles. And it's suddenly wrong because...?

9. The Valiant should have been the first thing the Daleks attacked and the last thing that went down. Saxon designed it, even if he used human materials to put it together. That makes it Gallifreyan tech, and possibly a Time War artifact, but either way a more dangerous enemy than the rest.

10. The regeneration. Why does that suddenly blast off enough energy to light up the room like New Years Eve at a munitions factory? (Thanks, Melinda Kitty.) Nine's was explicable. Ten's abortive was NOT.

11. If a regeneration DOES make it possible for a human to end up as bits of a Time Lord, then why didn't Ben & Polly, Tegan, Nyssa, & Peri also end up as Time Lordish people? They, too, were touching the Doctor at regenerations.

12. Speaking of which, where WERE the other "Children of Time" anyway? The Brigadier, at least? Ian & Barbara, Victoria, Ben & Polly, Tegan, Liz, Harry, Mike, John Benton, ACE?

13. So the Daleks moved, attacked, and conquered the entire planet Earth, just to round up about twenty people to disintegrate when testing the reality bomb. This is overkill. Daleks are meant to be logical. Seems like an awful lot of trouble for no reason.

14. Yet, the Daleks in charge thought they were trying to hide this from the Doctor. Excuse me, isn't just taking the Earth, never mind messing it up, like ASKING the Doctor to fix your little red wagon?

15. They wiped out all of Earth's military - they did attack all military bases, and shoot everything alive. So Earth is now, pretty much, unarmed.

16. Which makes Martha Jones just about the highest ranking active duty officer on the entire planet. And she's going to hide in a hole under Cardiff? And they're going to LET her??

17. The Doctor tried to save Davros. Claims he did during the Time War, and definitely did during this incident. Why, exactly? Every single TIME you take your eyes off of him, he spawns an entire flotilla of violently rabid xenophobic racial supremacists. The functional definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

18. Towering hypocrisy enough to make even a Time Lord blush: Davros, who just tried to wipe out the entire unblessed multi-verse proclaims the Doctor to be the "Destroyer of Worlds".

19. Who exactly invented that Dimensional Cannon? Because there was no one in the entire Universe of Pete's World who wanted the thing to actually succeed, except Rose Tyler, but for some unfathomable reason, Torchwood diverted man hours and resources to creating it?

20. How did Jackie Tyler, even with Mickey escorting her, manage to get into the Torchwood arsenal, arm herself, and transport herself across Universes, just to scold her daughter and demand she come home for dinner? (Incidentally, Jackie Tyler with a gun? Who's nightmare was THAT?? Besides Nine's, I mean, as he would be cowering in a corner and possibly whimpering at the thought.)

21. Jack's clothes apparently acquire immortality by proxy. They stuffed him into an incinerator, after all.

22. Twenty nuclear warheads, even absurdly powerful ones, even placed in fault lines, would wreck the Earth, not destroy it.

23. Sarah Jane Smith decided to drive (through an invasion) from Croydon to where ever the TARDIS was. Which location she couldn't have known, correct? She's crazy about the Doctor, but not that crazy.

24. The Master's had physical contact with that hand. Even if he did nothing to it, it doesn't bode well, does it?

25. River Song gave an awful lot of nothing away, and whinged about everything she saw. Yet she made no comment about the Doctor in a blue suit. However, the blue suit has gone to live in the parallel Universe. Curiouser and curiouser.

26. If the Universe Walls have gone through retro-closure, does that mean many other things will have retroactively not happened? Or does that just mean that the Multi-verse retroactively repaired itself? If it did retro-actively repair itself, then will it allow a fundamental Universal Law violation like the Doctor!Too, effectively a second Doctor, to exist?

27. If a human/Time Lord meta-crisis isn't possible, then what's going to happen to the Doctor!Too?

28. If a human body cannot support a Time Lord brain, but the Doctor!Too is half-human, can he survive? Theoretically, to be Time Lord enough to support that brain, he'll need that binary cardiovascular system. Even if he doesn't, won't the body reject the brain? Or, possibly, the Time Lord systems repair themselves?

29. If Donna being a temporary Time Lord is what made it possible/necessary to keep her and the Doctor together, then at what point was Rose Tyler's extensive intervention in Turn Left required, if any?

30. Speaking of which, Rose managed to fly across Universes, find the correct one, pop backward and forward through time (only possible explanation for knowing about/arranging the winning raffle ticket), take over UNIT without giving her name, dismantle the TARDIS, talk what was left of Her into helping her, build a mirror that shows things in flux, build a time machine, arrange a traffic accident to save the Universe (takes after her Dad?), persuade Donna Noble to suicide, and set off the Bad Wolf warning enough that even the TARDIS wore it. Then she meekly went back to the Parallel Universe to become wife/jailer to the Next to the Last of the Time Lords. How does one logically equate to the other?


	8. Any Random Christmas

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's December Challenges have been added because my monthly challenges are the gift that keeps on giving. OK, they're not, but if you write a fic with them, they are! If you'd rather do November's, please feel free! I'm still holding out hope. The new challenges will run through the end of December. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. I will also be linking them on my LJ in the future!**

_Happy Holidays, however you celebrate them, to one and all. Bright Blessings! -Jessa_

* * *

**Any Random Christmas**

"So, we're broke?" said Rose.

"Yep," agreed the Doctor, with that fake cheer he used in situations where no amount of real cheer was actually called for. "No currency for this planet, this town, or this time period. Completely skint."

"And the psychic paper's no good for this situation?"

"Nope. 'Sides, seems a bit wrong, usin' psychic paper under the circumstances."

Rose nodded, a bit grimly. "Good point." She looked around. "And it's snowing."

"Looks like," the Doctor agreed, this time with a real grin, throwing his head back to let the flakes fall onto his face.

Rose laughed and strongly considered stuffing snow down the back of his leather jacket, since the angle he was bent at left a gap between it and his neck. She decided against it simply because he seemed to be in a reasonable facsimile of a good mood for some reason. He was usually so irritable about these sorts of things; the moments with his real smile were simply too precious to waste. "And Jack's in jail."

"'Fraid so," the Doctor admitted, sorting himself out to look down at her apologetically.

"Through no fault of his own, for once."

"As far as we know," the Doctor corrected on this point.

"Can we use the sonic screwdriver?" she wondered idly, as they walked past a teller machine.

"Nope. Jack's got it with him."

"And he can't bust himself out?" she questioned incredulously.

"Circumstances," the Doctor reminded her.

"Right," said Rose, shaking her head. "Well, all together, this sucks. Did I leave anything out?"

"It's Christmas here, an' even I'd feel guilty about leavin' the lad in jail for Christmas?" the Doctor offered.

"Good point," said Rose. "An' we need to raise his bail. Any idea what it was?"

"Dunno, why? You got something you can auction off?"

She looked at the Doctor appraisingly and then shrugged. "Could turn out your pockets. Bound to find half a dozen things I could sell. Plus the Holy Grail, no doubt."

The Doctor chuckled. "No doubt," he agreed. "Tell ya what, there's a pawn shop on the corner. I'll go turn out me pockets, see what I can dredge up, that ok?"

Rose frowned. "Seriously, let's try something else first," she said.

"What's that?"

Rose considered the bright, cheerful street corner of the snowy, red and green bedecked little town. "Can you sing?"

* * *

"_Ding dong merrily on high, in heaven bells are ringing..._" Rose and the Doctor stood on the street corner, one unutterably self-conscious, the other beaming like a lunatic. though oddly it was a complete role reversal from their usual. Rose's smile was brighter than the sun glinting off the stark white snowbanks behind them. The Doctor, holding her hand as if dropping it would result in the end of the world, looked like any instant now he would have to run for his life.

Still, he twined his voice around Rose's, weaving the baritone melody in alongside her tenor harmony, the notes tumbling from his mouth with easy grace and dark beauty. Rose was in complete awe and, when the song was finished and their impromptu audience applauded, she rounded on him and bounced happily on her toes.

"Your voice is gorgeous, too," she announced, letting him puzzle out what that sentence meant. "Were you trained by someone famous or something?"

"Or something," he replied dryly, then waved a hand as if to brush away the suggestion. "Eh, it's an old hobby. Plus, I don't have ta breathe so much as you lot do."

"I'm pretty good at holding notes," she defended.

"Really?" he asked, and a challenge flickered in his vivid blue eyes.

Rose looked worried. That was all she did; she wasn't worried in the slightest, but challenging him meant he might actually enjoy himself a little, rather than stand there looking like he'd been unwittingly chained to a case of explosives.

Coins dropped into the hat he'd found rolled up in his pocket, which was now sitting at their feet. The Doctor shot her his manic grin and burst into song.

They sang through everything she could remember, laughing and having a lot more fun than either of them had expected when this adventure started. There was something strange and simple and beautiful about it, half domestic and half adventure, singing Christmas Carols together, under an alien sky, on an Earth colony world in the late 28th century. Rescuing their companion by standing hand-in-hand on a snowy street corner, voices wrapped around each other in an embrace that almost felt physical.

Rose was surprised and gratified at how fast the hat filled up, but she was also enormously relieved. It probably wasn't anywhere near enough, but it could give them a start and an excuse to find out how much more they'd need. The Doctor shrugged as the crowd thinned, so they collected their earnings and headed back to the place where Jack was being held.

* * *

Approaching a well dressed man sitting at a heavily decorated table, Rose used her best "I'm the most lovable thing in the world" smile. The Doctor, having been well-damned by that smile for a long time now, was pleased to see she was turning it on some other unsuspecting sod.

There was no green-eyed monster sitting on his shoulder, whispering in his ear that that smile was _his_ smile and no one else could have it. Time Lords didn't have green-eyed monsters. The reason he glowered thunderously at the man was that he'd been part of the group that took Jack.

Really.

The man paled and stopped eyeing Rose up, which was a very good thing. Rose turned her smile on the Doctor, then, and her tongue poked out through her teeth. If the green-eyed monster had existed (which it most emphatically did not), it would probably have been soothed by the fact that the man at the table did not get that version of the smile. (In fact, as far as he knew, no one did.)

"We're here to bail out Captain Jack Harkness," Rose told the now pale man at the table. "Can you help us with that?"

The man explained politely that a certain person would have to help them and, after calling that person, wandered off into the enormous crowd gathering around the little cells scattered across the room. The old man who came up to them now, smiling in a friendly fashion, and giving the Doctor a bit of a turn. Except for the smile, this old man looked quite a bit like he did when he was young.

"I'm Director Porith. I understand you're here about Captain Harkness," the old man said in a jovial voice.

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah," he agreed, almost reluctantly. "He's not causin' you trouble is he?"

The Director chuckled. "Oh, not at all. Actually, he's probably the most delightful participant we've ever had. His methods have been a bit unorthodox, but..."

Rose sighed. "He's snogging people, isn't he?" she asked.

Porith laughed amiably. "How well you know him."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Well, he can stop now. We've brought what we collected." He handed over the cash from their caroling adventure. "Is that enough to get him out?"

The Director shook his head, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "Actually, I have to confess that the Captain has raised his contribution twice already this morning and is well on the way to collecting it a third time."

The Doctor frowned. "What?"

Rose sighed. "Heart of gold?" she suggested to the Doctor.

"I know it's a charity, Rose," he said, exasperated. Louder, hoping Jack would hear him, he added, "But I hoped Jack woulda finished whatever he got signed up ta do an' let us get on with th' adventure."

"Mistletoe kisses are all the adventure I want today, Doc!" Jack's voice answered after a pause.

The crowd cheered.

"Are all those people lined up to kiss him?" Rose demanded of the Director.

Porith nodded amiably. "At a credit a kiss, he's raised a sizable contribution."

"A credit a kiss?!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"Hey, I'm worth it," Jack's voice called back.

"Really," said a woman in the line near them. "I've been six times."

The Doctor sighed and gestured at the cash he'd handed over. "Consider that my contribution t'ward you keepin' him," he told the Director, who laughed happily, clearly thinking he was joking. "C'mon, Rose," he added.

"Where are we going?" she wondered.

The Doctor pushed his way through the crowd, rummaging in his pockets as he went. They reached Jack and the crowd cheerfully made room for them. Apparently, they were impressed by the smile Jack bestowed on the Doctor and Rose.

"There," the Doctor said, stuffing a credit in change into Jack's hand.

Jack grinned and held out his arms. The Doctor shook his head and turned to Rose. She blinked at him in surprise, but gave in to him easily enough when he wrapped his arms around her.

Kissing his Rose was rather a lot like kissing morning. She was hot and tasted like rain. He'd meant, really, just to drop a quick kiss in order to annoy Jack, but he should have known better. Their lips brushed against each other and she surprised him by melting in his embrace. There was no way he was going to pass up the opportunity to savor her like the rare and exotic treasure she was. Her lips parted and he didn't try to resist, just nipped gently at that pouting lower lip that had been teasing him since he'd first seen her. His tongue slipped past her teeth and she welcomed it with her own.

When they finally broke the kiss, they were both breathless. "Hey, why don't you two get a room?" Jack teased.

"We're going home," the Doctor said, taking Rose's hand in his. She blinked up at him, completely dazed, and he had never felt so fantastic. "Have fun."

"What was the credit for then?" Jack joked.

"Loan of your mistletoe," the Doctor replied flippantly. He looked down at Rose. "Run?" he asked.

She grinned and squeezed his hand. "Yeah, run."

As always, they did.


	9. Beautiful

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's January Challenges have been added because I still can't stop thinking these things up. If you'd rather do December's, please feel free! The new challenges will run through the end of January. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. I will also be linking them on my LJ in the future!**

I got this prompt from irishlullaby on my LJ. The prompt was a quote from Cinderella: "Do you love me because I am beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?" For the first time, ever, I have written a double drabble. Each paragraph is 100 words.

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**Beautiful**

He loves her because she is beautiful. This is not merely a matter of her physical appearance, which he is loathe to admit snatches his breath at the most inopportune moments, but rather it is a fact of her very existence. Everything she does is beautiful. She takes his hand, says his name, and they run. She has compassion for everything she sees, love enough to influence everything she lays eyes on, even the broken wreck of a Time Lord. She will never know how many times she has saved the world, saved the whole Universe, just by saving him.

Baleful blue eyes and a hand bent to revenge, he can destroy galaxies on a whim. She looks out on the sorrows of creation and sees instead the joy of what remains. He borrows her golden brown perspective, because his own has become far too jaded. "Beautiful," she proclaims, and she is watching him watch her. Human child time itself adores, she cannot understand her power. Rose spreads her warmth around him like a cloak and he remembers himself through her ideals, relearns the Doctor and his belief in good. He becomes what she sees: beautiful, because she loves him.


	10. The One Plot Hole I Can't Fix

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's February Challenges have been added to make you feel my love. If you'd rather do January's, please feel free! The new challenges will run through the end of February. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. I will also be linking them on my LJ in the future!**

_A/N: Twenty-two years ago today, I finished my very first full length Doctor Who fiction. No, you can't see it - you value your eyes, I'm sure. Still, I have been at this a LONG time. In that time, I've gone through every possible theory, line of speculation, and plot hole. I am the unofficial bearer of plot-hole repair kits, you know, and I don't have to invent witches or strange black magic to explain any of them. However, there is one I can't fix. In celebration of more than 22 years writing Doctor Who, here is the story of that plot hole. Love you all! -Jessa_

**The One Plot-hole I Can't Fix**

**_AKA: Fixing it Anyway_**

* * *

"Doctor!!!" Rose screamed. "Don't leave me! Please, not like this, not again!"

"Rose," the Doctor's voice answered, "c'mon, precious girl, wake up. I'll not leave you, I'm right here."

Rose sat bolt upright in her bed, the sound of the TARDIS singing in her ears. She stared around her, blinking in shock, then dismay, then delight. And then, the voice she'd just heard registered, and she turned to the recliner next to her bed.

The Doctor beamed back at her, reached for her hand. She loved that grin of his, she thought, as she flung herself, heedless of her state of tears or clothing, out of the bed and into the chair with him, into his astounded arms, before even he with his lightning fast reflexes could blink.

Blink those brilliant blue eyes that were boring into her now, as his large, calloused hand cupped her face. She burrowed into his chest, nineteen to nine hundred, heart to hearts, as it always should be, and inhaled the scent of him, the heavy fragrance of leather mingling with the never-changing fragrance of time and wonder. "Oh, Doctor, I had such a terrible dream."

"About the Dalek?" he asked, his voice dark and shaky. "I'm sorry."

"No! It was much worse. It was... oh, God, so many things. And I'd been torn away from you, and spent years trying to get back to you, and you died, and then you didn't die, but there was another you, and you wanted me to stay with him because he was mostly human, and I would have, because I'd never tell you no about anything, but oh, God, Doctor, I didn't want to."

He shook his head. "Sounds like you had pizza before you went ta sleep or somethin', to me," he said, teasing.

God, but she'd missed that. Only, she hadn't, because none of that was real. "There were Daleks, Doctor. In 2008. They were there to destroy the Universe. They stole the Earth."

He chuckled lightly. "That's impossible, Rose. Don't worry about it."

She looked at him, intently. Oh, but she knew so much more about reading those eyes, now. She'd peered into them beneath black holes and through eternity and in their last moments on more than one occasion. She'd learned them as no one ever had or ever would, at least for an instant, and it was all fading so fast. In one reality, she'd dragged him out of a bar before he could kill himself, and in another one, she'd been the mysterious weeping figure who lit his funeral pyre. "Is it really, Doctor?" she asked, knowing that her voice wouldn't sound the least bit like the youthful charge he was still cradling in his arms.

He smiled at her anyway, and brushed her hair out of her face. "Yes, Rose. Because, we just took on a Dalek in 2012, and if we did that, then the world couldn't be stolen by Daleks in 2008."

"But you said time is always in flux," she reminded him.

"I think I've also told you that once I'm there, I become part of events. That makes the events fixed. They can't change unless the entire time-line that generated them is erased."

She frowned, considering that with what she knew now, with the mind of a girl who had built a time machine, literally, with mirrors. "What would happen if something tried to over-ride the time-line of a fixed event?" she asked hesitantly.

"Reset."

She flinched. "So a time loop?"

"No, a Reset. Sorry, the word's not translatin' right, and I'm havin' to use the Gallifreyan. It means that the whole temporal nexus would fold back to a point that would erase the attempt."

Her eyes went wide - she could feel it. Joy, unimaginable joy, flooded through her. She could fix this, really fix this. "Would anyone remember?" she asked, peering up at him, re-memorizing his precious, daft old face, just in case.

"S'complicated," he said. "Don't worry about it, though. You need sleep, precious girl. Nothin' like that can happen anymore, nothing that can do that kind of damage that it would bounce all of reality off a fixed event. Besides, if it did happen, you'd need three Time Lords to keep the Universes from collapsing until the Reset could take place."

"Just three?" she asked, and he was right, she was sleepy.

"Eh, two and a quarter, if most of 'em were me, yeah," he said. His voice was teasing, but it was low and gentling, too.

"You think you're so impressive," she joked, smiling up at him, fighting tears.

"I am so impressive," he answered softly.

"I know," she agreed. "Don't take me to 1987 even if I ask and whatever you do, don't take me to 1879."

"All right," he agreed.

She nodded, tried to think. "And can we throw Adam out back home before he ends up with a hole in his head and gets us both killed?"

The Doctor was rubbing soothing circles in her back, now. "Glad to," he said, and she could tell he meant it.

She giggled lightly. "I don't fancy him, anyway," she said.

"Really?" he asked.

"No," she answered firmly. "I only brought him along to show off. Because he's an idiot."

"No arguments from me there, either," he said with a chuckle. His voice was doing wonderfully restful things to her, and she really did want to sleep, but there were important things she had to say before she slept.

"Tell me about regeneration in the morning. Promise?"

He didn't flinch. If she had been more awake, she would have worried about that, but right now, the only thing she could assume was that he thought she had read it somewhere or maybe the Dalek had said something. "I promise," he said. "After I throw out your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend." She smiled happily to herself. "Everyone thinks you're my boyfriend." She grinned at him, then, her tongue poking through her teeth. "You will be my boyfriend, won't you, Doctor?"

"Go to sleep, Rose," he said tenderly.

"But you will, won't you?"

He sighed. "I'll even buy the chips."

"Good." She closed her eyes. "Stay with me."

"I will."

"Forever?"

"Oh, yes."

* * *

The Doctor held her and gently petted her hair. Funny thing about time-lines. They were all there, all of them, written out in infinite detail, showing every single point. And you could see them, if you happened to be a certain kind of person.

Like a Time Lord.

Rose was still murmuring in her sleep as he stood up and gently carried her to bed. The one irreconcilable difference had given him this, a REAL second chance. "Talk to me about Sarah Jane and the others. It'll help. Both of us."

"Of course," he murmured as he lowered her to the mattress.

"You said you wouldn't leave," she whimpered. "You promised and then you jumped through a mirror and then you dropped me behind a wall."

"I'm not leaving," he promised, pulling his jumper off over his head. "And that will never happen."

"Good, because it's hard to have a fantastic life when you spend most of your time with a sentence hanging over you."

He kicked off his shoes and lay down next to her, pulling her into his arms. "Doesn't matter, that. Whether or not it's my last chance to say it, I love you, Rose Tyler, and I always will."

"Love you, too," she murmured.

"I know."

"Never gonna leave you."

"I know."

"My Doctor," she added in a whisper after several long minutes.

"Yes," he agreed and kissed her hair.

Later, much later, one more soft confession drifted from her lips. "I am the Bad Wolf."

He thought about those words, and what they truly meant in the end, what they would always mean: that she would always come back to him, for him, only him. A small, proud, and triumphant smile made its way on to his lips as he whispered, "Yes, you are."


	11. Sweet Dreams

Happy birthday to **edgeofworld**. Oh, and Happy NINE Day! (Nine, Nine, oh Nine!)

_For Lease: 1 Author! Two chances to own your own piece of the randomness that is Jessa L'Rynn. Support Stacie Author Auction coming up September 11th-14th! Bid early and bid often - details on my LJ, link from my profile._

* * *

**Sweet Dreams **(100 word drabble)

Sometimes when she touches him, she almost wonders if he is real. His eyes are as bright as they ever were, as blue, as tender. His hands are as calloused and cool.

His lips are on hers far more often. His voice is a lover's in her ear now, whispering promises of forever love and erotic abandon. His fingers on her skin are familiar explorers now, venturing places she can never remember him traveling before, places she wants him to journey to, again and again.

Sometimes she's afraid he's only a dream. More often, she's afraid that she'll wake up.


	12. Journeys' End Sideways

_**AUCTION SPECTACULAR - GET YOUR OWN AUTHOR!! Two chances to own your own piece of the randomness that is Jessa L'Rynn. Support Stacie Author Auction coming up September 11th-14th! Bid early and bid often - details on my LJ, link from my profile. Others up for sale as well and remember - Buy Whovian!!**_

**

* * *

Journeys' End... Sideways**

Rose had no idea how long she stood there watching the ocean, with her Doctor's hand in hers, but she did know what stopped her, finally. The Universe sang chaos and the sounding silence exploded into noise. Rose stared. The Doctor clutched at her shoulders and stared. Jackie Tyler, as annoyed as she could possibly be, stared.

The TARDIS rematerialized on the beach as if She'd never been gone.

The Doctor and Rose glanced at each other. "I'm dreaming," he breathed.

"Me, too," she agreed.

The doors opened. Grinning like an idiot, his brown suit rumpled and wet, the Doctor stepped out through the doors.

"Yep, dream," Rose said.

"Complete hallucination." The Doctor next to her nodded vigorously.

"No no no no no," said the brown-suit Doctor enthusiastically. "Thing is, I thought this out, right? Retro-closure and all that. Retro-closure happens, but so does... Well, did I mention it also travels in time?"

"Impossible," said the Doctor on the beach.

"I know," said the Doctor in the TARDIS doorway. "Love that word, impossible. Alice believed in impossible things. Me, I do them. All the time, too. Or, rather, they're done to me and I spend the whole thing looking like a landed fish and trying to figure out what happened, and I thought, why not, just this once, I'll do something impossible and let the rest of the Universe do the gasping and catching up thing."

Rose shrugged. "Sounds clever," she mused.

"So, you what?" asked the other Doctor, and a grin slowly blossomed across his face. "Left your spare sonic screwdriver in the pockets? Forgot to say something witty and stupid, never mind a proper goodbye? Need this particular pair of pants for something?"

Both Doctors, for some reason, were laughing. Rose stared incredulously at them. "I'm confused," she admitted.

"So was I," said the Doctor in the doorway. "But then, I realized with that one around, I'm not the last of the Time Lords. I was prepared to look after the Master for the rest of our lives, and this one's not nearly so difficult."

"I'm very unlikely to poison your Cornflakes just so I can giggle over you being sick," the other Doctor agreed. "Might still play annoying music at you, as I seem to have Donna's rather revolting affection for Air Supply, but it's better than _Voodoo Child_, I suppose, and really there's got to be a cure for this somewhere. And it's not like I've ever taken over the world or, I dunno, caused half a galaxy to get dragged into the void."

"Exactly. You'll make much more interesting company."

"Oh," said Rose, staring at both of them. "Well." She didn't know what to say.

Jackie came storming over. "Now, just one minute, Doctor!"

"Nope, sorry, Jackie," said the Doctor in the doorway.

"Haven't got a minute," agreed the Doctor on the beach.

"It's just, if this were a fairy tale, you wouldn't be the princess, not on purpose, and the way we worked this out before, you'd be the princess and that's hardly fair. You've got everything you could possibly want, Jackie Tyler, and the only thing I've ever had or wanted is standing right here on this beach with Handy the Wonder Clone."

"Oy, less with the insults, Timeboy, or I'll tell her the real reason you don't want her to know our name."

Rose's face was a picture, but she settled quickly. "Mum, you knew this was going to happen. I told you every day for years I wasn't coming back if I ever found him. I've tied up all the loose ends back there, there's not even a post-me note on my desk or a crumb in my fridge. Actually, I don't even have a desk or a fridge, come to think of it. I love you and Pete and Tony, I do, but that's your life now, and this, this is mine."

"You always pick him," Jackie complained.

"I know," said Rose. "And I'll miss you, I will, but even you know it's better this way, and you know why."

Jackie sighed. "I'll miss you, too. I'll just take the jumper back to Torchwood, I suppose."

"Good idea," Rose agreed. She looked at the Doctors. "That is, if I can come?"

"That was sort of the point, yeah," agreed the Doctor in the doorway, scratching at the back of his neck. "I mean, he's fascinating and everything, and I've been talking to myself for years, so it'd be nothing new, but really... just... yeah."

"Please, Rose?" asked the other Doctor, still holding on to her hand. "I... I promise we'd behave and not act like idiots too much or anything."

Jackie gave Rose a sudden bright grin. "Remember that question I asked you that Christmas?" she said.

Rose blushed crimson and then, to even her own surprise, started to giggle.

"What question?" asked the Doctor in the doorway warily.

Rose and Jackie laughed.

"No, really," said the Doctor who was holding her hand as they walked toward the TARDIS and back to their proper lives, "what question?"

"Bye Mum," Rose called. "I'll love you forever."

"I love you, too, Rose!" Jackie called back.

"No, honestly," said the Doctor, as he went to close the door. "What question?"

Rose looked from one man to the other - or one Time Lord to the other, really. Identical. Tall and slender and soul-deep brown eyes, three hearts between them, beautifully brilliant, fantastic minds, and two heads of really great hair. One who swore he loved her and the other who swore they were the same man. She felt like her heart would burst with joy. Instead, she just sauntered over to the console, and stroked it like they always did.

"What question?" they both demanded as the doors closed on Rose's old life.

Rose just grinned and turned to go find her old room. "I get to be in the middle," she sang, as she sashayed down the corridor.


	13. Journeys' End Backward

**AUCTION SPECTACULAR - GET YOUR OWN AUTHOR!! Two chances to own your own piece of the randomness that is Jessa L'Rynn. Support Stacie Author Auction coming up September 11th-14th! Bid early and bid often - details on my LJ, link from my profile. Others up for sale as well and remember - Buy Whovian!!**

Also, just an FYI - EVERYONE WHO BIDS $10 gets a fic of at least 100 words - see my LJ for details!

* * *

**Journeys' End... Backward**

_(Because the Doctor and the Doctor are sometimes wrong and sometimes the victims of their own wishful thinking...)_

He was laughing when he died, killed by a stray bullet in a bank heist gone very wrong. Even the bank robbers were appalled as he fell. He didn't even have time to notice what had happened to him, was just gone between one heart beat and the next.

Rose was too astonished to even move, and when she did, it was to deliver a massive stun charge to one of the thieves. The second and third threw down their ill gotten gains and surrendered to her. The forth and final member of the set, the one who had the actual gun in his hand, was gibbering and gaping in terror, not at her, but at the body behind her. Rose advanced on him slowly, but it finally registered what he was gesturing at only when she felt that familiar singing, screaming energy behind her.

She grabbed the gunman and his gun, tucked the weapon into her trousers, and held him in a vise-like grip, forcing him to watch what happened. The body exploded into light brighter than the sun.

The crowds evaporated, except a furious Rose Tyler and the thieves who had stolen some pointless money and her peace of mind in one moment.

The one she held struggled against her. "What is it?" he shrieked. "What's happening?"

"Watch!" she ordered ferociously.

The light burned away, leaving the Doctor lying there on the pavement in a bloody suit. He looked different, of course, but it was an... unexpected different.

"I suppose you'll be wanting a leather jacket now?" she asked.

He sat up and blinked at her, confused. "What are you on about now?" he demanded. "And what are you doing to that stupid ape?"

"Long story," she said.

"Hope he's not your new boyfriend," he said.

"Not hardly," she answered with a grimace. "Why would you think that?"

"'Cuz he's fainted," the Doctor teased, and then proceeded to pass out himself.


	14. My Doctor Gave to Me

**_I hope you all have the happiest of holidays, however you choose to celebrate. Most of all, I hope this day finds you warm and well with someone you love._**

This year's random Christmas story is a perfect double drabble - exactly 200 words.

* * *

**My Doctor Gave to Me**

"On the first day of Christmas, my Doctor gave to me…"

"Those aren't the right words, Rose," said Jack with a happy laugh.

"'Course they are," she insisted.

"Nope," Jack argued. He burst into song with, "On the first day of Yuletide, our Doctor gave to me…"

Rose threw a snowball at the Captain's head. "_My_ Doctor," she insisted, glaring mock-fiercely until Jack nodded his surrender. As she draped another strand of fairy lights down to frame the Police Box doors, she went back to singing. "A TARDIS for a Christmas Tree."

The Doctor came storming out the front of the TARDIS and snowflakes immediately settled on his close-cropped hair. "It's a time machine, not a Christmas tree, so cut it out with the fairy lights. It's Christmas here, not Yuletide. It's the twelfth day, not the first, and…" He looked down at Rose who smiled up at him until his face finally worked its way down from annoyed to a broad grin.

"And?" Rose asked him.

The Doctor took Rose's hands in his, warming them by tucking their joined hands into his coat pockets. "And I'm not the Captain's Doctor."

Rose was insufferably smug about it in Jack's opinion.


	15. Journey's Mend

_This is one of the pieces I did in the throes of my fits over Journey's End. I just found it and thought I'd post it. No, I still only come to terms with it some times..._

* * *

**Journey's Mend**

He's spent the day doing things he doesn't want to do, now, so the Doctor believes it best to just finish it off before he can't do it any more. Three buttons, a lever, and a raindrop, and the TARDIS is materializing in Cardiff and Cardiff honestly hurts.

Of all the places in all of time and space that had to go and somehow become theirs, it just had to be bloody Cardiff.

Jack lets himself in with his key. The Doctor stares at the console and tries to convince himself that the old philosophers were right, and that he is the only thing that exists. It never works, but today he's done some beautiful impressions of believing it.

"Donna?" Jack asks softly, refusing to ignore or be ignored.

The Doctor shakes his head. "Forgotten," he admits. He doesn't want to talk any more about it, because there are at least three minds going in his head on the subject, four if you count the one that just wants to shake Sylvia Noble.

"And the rest of it?" Jack prods, because Jack has lived too long and learned to know too much.

"He'll live a reasonable facsimile of a normal life. His time line stabilized the second we dropped through the Void. I don't pretend to understand it and I know he's got no idea what was going on, but he'll figure it out eventually. They'll be safe there, and that's all I can really ask for."

"Did you ever figure out who she is?"

The Doctor shrugs, all the confession of uncertainty he is going to give. "A Rose Tyler," he says, as though something so rare and precious as Rose Tyler can be made to come in family-sized, economy packaging for mass distribution. Everyone wants a Rose, after all, wouldn't be fair if supply were limited.

It's not true, not really, that last thought. No one actually wants an entire, complete Rose Tyler, except the Doctor himself. Jack wants a carefree and friendly Rose, or a powerful and able to undo what she did Rose. Jackie Tyler wants a Rose who is... just not Rose. Even the Other wants a fantastic Rose, but with some of the more 'Don't you even think about trying to leave me behind again' bits left out.

"How do you know she wasn't _the_ Rose, Doc, instead of just _a_Rose?" Jack demands. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but you're not exactly known for thinking clearly where she's concerned."

"My Rose can build a time machine with mirrors, now, Jack. That lovely woman, who looks, acts, and is very much like her, could not. There are little things, Jack - just tiny things. That Rose is more suited to staying with Jackie Tyler."

"Fine then," says Jack, grudgingly. "So what happened to the real Rose, then?"

The Doctor sighs and sits down in the jump seat. "It all goes back to Satellite Five, Jack. Everything happened there. No one who survived that place was the same when they left as when they arrived. I died and became me, but that's not all. Rose made me a god for a second - a Time Lord with absolute power, even I can't really be trusted with it. It had to kill me because a Time Lord body will assimilate anything that improves itself. The only way to stop my own genetics from trying to make me a god permanently was to regenerate."

"Ah. Always wondered why it managed to kill you and not an ordinary human. Seems to me to be the sort of thing that would annoy you - a lot!"

The Doctor smiles, finally, not so much a happy smile as a "this is normal" smile. Jack is not hitting him, Jack is acting like the Doctor prefers him to act - distant but curious. Things are as fine as they're going to get. "You know what happened to you, of course - became a fixed point in time and space. And Rose... it took me losing her to figure out what she did to herself, and I'm still not certain. I know now that she travels in time. Not quite sure about the rest."

"How in hell...?"

"Do I know?" the Doctor wonders, watching Jack pace agitatedly and wondering how to begin to explain this bit. "The second I became aware of the other two - the Doctor Donna and... hum, can I call him the Doctor Too? I think I'll call him that."

"He's _your_clone. Call him George if it suits you," Jack grumbles.

The Doctor shakes his head. "No, he'd be Fred. George loses body parts. Fred dies."

Jack, who obviously still hasn't gotten around to reading the Harry Potternovels, stares at the Doctor as if he's done something completely normal and therefore utterly unbelievable. The Doctor smirks while Jack sputters, and almost thinks about offering the older man a drink.

Funny things, role reversals. Jack's always going to be lots of those at once.

"What I mean is, Time Lords mind link, and I've been craving the contact since the Time War. Closest thing I had to it, I had to fight off constantly for a year, as you unfortunately remember." He paused. "Are you sure you won't let me..."

"Stop changing the subject." Jack's grim tone is as close to an order as he'll attempt with the Doctor.

The Doctor resigns himself to seeing this to the end. "I picked everything I needed out of the new Doctors' brains while they were otherwise occupied with being knocked down by Davros. That includes Donna's memories - he had them, even the ones about what happened in the world where I... um... never met Donna." The Doctor pauses for long moments to really think about that world.

After Bad Wolf Bay that first time, he was dying inside and had wanted to finish dying the rest of the way as well. Only Donna's timely intervention and the desire to save her made it possible for him to do anything that didn't involve standing there and watching the water rise. That was before he'd realized what's really going on with his Rose, before it all came to him in a flash of horrifying insight.

"Someone had to cross the time lines to get Pete there in the right time and the right place to save her," the Doctor says. "And it wasn't me. I can't, once I'm part of events. And you don't even want to know every very impossible thing she had to do to fix that one universe before we could save all of them. And then, just to warn me, to assure me that everything was true, happening, and needed me immediately, she jerked her very visible power out of the closet and bent time and space to cover _everything_- including the TARDIS, which she cannot possibly have altered - with 'Bad Wolf'."

"But you're absolutely certain?"

"Yes," the Doctor insists. "Rose Tyler is still out here somewhere. And I'll find her - if she lets me."

"What about the other two?"

"They believe they're who they are," the Doctor says. "They'll have each other. They'll have Jackie and she'll have them. They'll all be fine."

Jack snickers.

"What?" the Doctor asks, crossly. He's not in the mood for humor, not at all.

"What happens if the other two decide they're going to come after you for making their decisions for them?" he asks.

The Doctor decides he will never, ever, _ever_think of that.

"They could be your arch-enemies," Jack adds, and starts to laugh.

"Shut up."


End file.
